The problem of replenishing toner to a xerographic developer station, in a convenient, clean and safe manner, while at the same time providing physical protection to the toner cartridge during storage, shipment, etc., has been worked on for many years by those skilled in this art.
A particularly good way to seal the cartridge and, at the same time, provide convenient and somewhat clean dumping of the toner to the developer station, involves the use of a traveling-fold seal which is glued to the bottom-disposed dump-opening of a box-like cartridge. The aforesaid copending application describes a cartridge of this type. Other examples are U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,999,654 and 4,062,385.
Prior to the present invention, all such cartridges were placed in a conventional, strong, corrugated paperboard box. This box was opened at the site of the device whose toner is to be replenished, the toner cartridge was removed, the now-empty box was set aside, and the cartridge was mounted on the reproduction device. The traveling-fold seal was then removed.
The features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following more particular description of preferred embodiments of the invention, as illustrated in the accompanying drawing.